


final distance

by Xephonia



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Post-Canon, hanahaki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-17
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-12-16 12:17:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11828586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xephonia/pseuds/Xephonia
Summary: In which Nasch and Vector deal with hanahaki.





	final distance

**Author's Note:**

> Hanahaki, a disease that, in the original version, makes the affected cough up flowers as a result of unrequited love. In this fic, however, I took tons of liberties, so it becomes about /any/ unrequited feelings and also just, bottled up feelings generally.
> 
> A list of the flowers that show up will be provided at the end for spoiler reasons.

Nasch has been distant, lately.

Towards everyone, really. Towards Yuuma, towards Durbe, even Merag; but most importantly, Vector.

Now usually Vector wouldn't care.

(He doesn't, does he?)

But it's annoying.

A Nasch who broods and doesn't react to anything is boring. It's almost like the decade Vector spent without Nasch.

_Uneventful and uninteresting._

There's no way in which Nasch isn't annoying.

The more Vector thinks about it, Vector feels like he's choking. Like something's stuck in his—

"Oi, Vector. Can you give me an energy drink from the fridge?" 

—Vector chokes, coughs into his hand, and _fucking Nasch_ stares at him, raises an eyebrow, and then—

A single, orange petal.

Fuck.

Vector clenches his fist around it to hide it from Nasch, because the asshole is definitely going to notice, given that he used to have it himself and all—

"Got a crush on Yuuma?" Nasch laughs.

"Bastard," says Vector, and he's feeling better already.

~*~

When Vector attacked Poseidon, Nasch doubled over and coughed up white and brown petals, and Durbe accused Vector of poisoning Nasch.

Vector would've done it, but Nasch knows how to ruin himself without help just fine.

(As children, Nasch had told him that he was infected with hanahaki at an early age. He usually brought the symptoms under control fast, though, he'd say. 'Control of emotions'. Vector pretended to not see the red rose petals he kept coughing up every time they met.)

Back then, Vector would laugh at Nasch, saying, "So you did have a crush on me. How pathetic."

The look in Nasch's eyes was priceless.

By the time Nasch chased Vector to the ends of earth, not a single petal would fall.

~*~

When Vector contemplates the people he could possibly have caught the disease from, only Nasch and Yuuma qualify.

He's been around both of them when they coughed up petals, Yuuma undoubtedly because of Vector, at the time— god knows why Nasch is exhibiting the symptoms in this life— and them infecting him was never unlikely.

The question is more who he's having unrequited feelings for, and what the nature of those are.

'Got a crush on Yuuma?', Nasch's stupid voice echoes, but no, that's not it.

Vector dials Yuuma's number anyway.

~*~

Being around Yuuma doesn't actually make it better, at all. It just means Vector has to deal with the mess of lotus petals that Yuuma leaves behind himself.

"Sorry," he says, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "I'm not used to Astral being gone, yet."

_It's been a half a year, idiot. Get over it._

Vector nods like he understands, but he doesn't. Instead he's still mad, because everyone is brooding.

Yuuma? He'll get himself together, eventually. He always does. Annoyingly so, usually, but right now Vector would appreciate Yuuma's kattobingu.

Nasch? Just keeps brooding forever, like the bastard he is.

Vector coughs up more orange petals.

_This tastes terrible._

"Are you okay, Shingetsu?" Yuuma examines the petals, as he always does with his own, too. "You, too, huh?"

"Not even in hell," says Vector, more to himself than to Yuuma.

~*~

A week later, Vector gives up and rushes into Nasch's room, just to end up coughing out more petals.

Nasch breaks into a fit of laughter. "Serves you right."

"Still mad because of back then?"

"Absolutely."

"Wow, honest." Vector rolls his eyes.

Nasch shrugs. "Go be around Yuuma and stop annoying me. It's not like I can help you with your unrequited crush."

"That's not it."

"What then? I'm not letting you date Merag." Nasch doesn't move an inch from his bed.

"I don't fucking know."

"Then do what I did back then?"

"I know you just hid it from me, don't act smug now." Vector nonchalantly coughs more petals onto Nasch's floor.

Nasch glares. "Then what do you want? Hanahaki has no cure."

He points next to his cushion where a tiny pile of petals is sorted by color.

_Oh._

~*~

"Yuuma-kun, why don't we play the pocky game?"

"You really don't need to cheer me up, Vector, but thank y—" 

"It's for myself," says Vector.

(Of course, that's half a lie.)

Yuuma seems to be able to tell, but nods anyway. "Sure then. Who backs out first loses?"

Yuuma has never lost the pocky game to anyone, but Nasch is sitting on the couch and watching, so maybe Vector should break Yuuma's streak.

(And piss Nasch off, a bit.)

Next thing he knows is he's left less than a centimeter from Yuuma's lips and both of them are dramatically unimpressed. 

(Well, Yuuma is kind of flustered, but he'd be like that with anyone.)

He hears Nasch coughing in the background.

_Good._

~*~

Of course, Nasch attempts to get back at him for it. Not unexpected.

Nasch spends time with Yuuma, reluctantly so, and lets Yuuma hug him despite usually despising it.

Vector isn't jealous of Nasch.

(Vector coughs up more petals anyway.)

~*~

The following week, Nasch locks himself up in his room, coughing at night and day alike.

Vector can tell because their rooms are next to each other, and they both leave trails of stupid orange petals on the way to the bathroom.

(Sometimes, Nasch leaves heather petals, too. Vector recognizes those because Yuuma coughed them up for a while right after they all came back.)

Nasch doesn't react to Vector's remarks about his crush on Yuuma.

_Annoying._

~*~

The symptoms keep getting worse.

Nights are sleepless. Vector has tested what happens if he distracts himself, but only talking to Tenjou Kaito or Merag vaguely does anything. Not enough for him to endure their company long term.

He coughs up more petals into the basket. "Oi, Nasch."

From the other side of the wall, a strained "What the fuck do you want.".

"If the others didn't catch hanahaki in the last 500 years, they won't catch it now, either. Stop being a wimp. It's bor-" Vector coughs up more petals. "Boring."

"Says you." Nasch sounds amused.

"I try to do something about it!" 

"Not very successfully. Even if I did manage to sleep, your coughing would wake me up."

"Same thing for me."

A moment of silence, then steps.

Vector coughs up even more petals.

Suddenly, the door opens.

"So, have you identified the plant yet?"

Vector blinks. "Eh?"

"You don't know? The plants give an indication as to why you have hanahaki." Nasch sighs and closes the door behind himself. "Are you telling me you tried to treat it without knowing what causes it?"

(Vector hates to admit that yes, he did.)

"Not all of us grew up in Japan, you know."

"That was a thing where you lived, too."

"Over 500 years ago."

"You remember literally everything I said back then, stop making excuses." Nasch crosses his arms and leans against the door.

"It's easy to remember things I hate."

Nasch smirks. "Mad because you caught hanahaki from me?"

"What?" Vector's eyes narrow.

He'd already suspected it and given the amount of time he spent at Poseidon and the fact that Nasch carried over the disease to his next lives—

"I hate you," Vector mutters, more to himself than to Nasch.

Nasch smirks. "You know that's mutual. Anyway, I should be leaving."

"Wait." Vector catches his sleeve.

Nasch raises an eyebrow. "What?" 

"Duel. None of us can sleep anyway."

~*~

At 10AM, Vector wakes up up on the floor, under Nasch's jacket and also his own.

Nasch, on the other hand, is sleeping.

In his bed.

_What a dick._

Vector takes out a sharpie and starts to draw on Nasch's face.

~*~

At noon, it's just Vector and Durbe at the breakfast table.

It's become sort of a habit, having breakfast with Durbe on weekends. Durbe tends to study lots on weekends, just to then oversleep because Merag disables his alarm so he doesn't collapse from exhaustion.

"So, any idea what this could be?"

Durbe pushes up his glasses and stares at the orange petal, apparently unafraid to touch it.

(Vector bets an entire basket of petals that Durbe actually has hanahaki, too, and just happens to be _really_ good at hiding it.)

"Looks like an orange lily to me."

Vector rolls his eyes. "Any idea what that _means_?"

"Spend more time with Nasch," Durbe says, apparently unhappy with his own words.

"Excuse me?"

"The flower stands for hatred."

_Oh._

Apparently Vector said that out loud, because Durbe nods. "Yeah, _oh_. I hate to say it, but it might be. Unrequited hatred."

"Unrequited? But he totally hates me."

"He also ignored you."

Vector coughs up a petal, as if on cue. "That. That reasoning is bullshit."

Even Nasch liking him sounds more believable than unrequited hatred.

_Unrequited hatred, my ass._

Vector sighs. "Then what about him? He barfs up the same flowers."

Durbe tilts his head. "Did any of you two show symptoms yesterday when you were together in your room?"

"You were awake?"

Durbe nods.

_Stalker._

"...We didn't."

"See?"

"That's still bullshit," says Vector, and he's not the only one.

Nasch leans in the doorframe, looking as disgruntled as ever. "Vector."

"Yeah?"

"You drew with fucking permanent marker, didn't you."

"Maybe."

"Fuck you."

Vector smirks.

"See? Symptom-free." Durbe seems to say that with some level of discomfort, swallowing some pills that he flushes down with coffee.

"That's still bullshit, Durbe."

"You two said that already."

Nasch sighs. "Fine. I'll prove it. I'll go on vacation. The symptoms are random. That'll prove it."

(Well, if Nasch insists. A break from Nasch is never bad.)

"Can I come along?" Durbe seems to almost jump at the opportunity.

"Sure?"

~*~

On further inspection, Vector finds that the pills Durbe downed were cough suppressants.

_How unsubtle._

(He takes it as advice and steals some of them, just in case.)

~*~

The vacation, Vector knows, is a fake-out, because Yuuma tweeted a picture of Nasch sleeping at Tenjou Kaito's house and then deleted it.

Also Mizael is 'also on an entirely unrelated vacation'.

(So they are really having their annual sleepover week at Tenjou tower, except Durbe joins them for once.)

Unsurprisingly, Vector gets a text from Durbe. Two days into the 'vacation'. [This is weird to ask of you, but can you text Nasch?]

[lol he misses me doesnt he]

[...He keeps coughing and insisting it has nothing to do with you. It would benefit both of you.]

[what do i get if i text him]

[A cough-free day.]

[i found your cough suppressants ☆⌒(ゝ。∂)]

[Don't tell him.]

[yeah yeah. ill text him btw. will you do kitchen duty for me next week ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶]

[Fine.]

[(*≧ω≦*)]

~*~

[naschie ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶]

[why do you have my number vector]

[i asked yuuma  
and he was all like, 'shark and you are getting along? nice!!'  
apparently you really missed me if you recognize me by the emoji i use lol]

[fuck you  
anyway what do you want]

[durbe said you keep coughing like a baby]

[what did he actually say]

[yaad yada worry about nasch, the usual stuff ／(˃ᆺ˂)＼  
don't expect me to actually listen to anything he's saying lol]

[oh ok  
well fuck you i dont need your help]

[bet you haven't coughed ever since i texted you lolol]

[it's been TWO MINUTES asshole]

[nasch has a crush on me how cute ヽ(♡‿♡)ノ ]

[fuck you you know those flowers symbolize hatred]

[oh so you admit you have an unrequited hate-crush on me]

[unrequited my ass  
bastard]

[hey you have a poster of jawsman in your room  
should i draw on it (⌒‿⌒)]

[fuck you no]

[you dont seem invested (￣ヘ￣)]

[are you saying i should come home from vacation to prevent you from being a piece of garbage]

[even a blind guy knows your 'vacation' is hiding at kaitos place. durbes there too so is mizael. im not dumb, cant say the same about you LOL]

[i hate you]

[so? °^°]

[see you in one hour]

~*~

Thirty-two minutes later, Nasch arrives in his room.

Vector, currently busy rearranging shitty shark plushies to spell 'loser', looks up. "Oh, hey. There already?"

"Fuck you."

Vector smirks. "It's always fun to see you glare."

"So much for _me_ being the one to have an unrequited crush." Nasch crosses his arms.

"Are you still hung up about that joke? Did I hit a nerve after all?"

"Who's the one who made a system involving one hundred million points because he somehow didn't want to off me for five centuries?"

This time, it's Vector who hisses under his breath, "Fuck you."

"Anyway. Yuuma told me to invite you over. To Kaito's place. Kaito doesn't mind."

Vector smirks. "Do _you_ want me to come over?"

"I don't."

"That's an incentive to go, I'm in." Vector gets up.

~*~

4 AM, again. Vector's awake.

So is Nasch.

"You're not up because of hanahaki, are you", says Nasch, casually, looking at the sky.

"Sleep cycle got fucked up by it. Not that I ever sleep before 3AM anyway."

"You're a mess."

"So are you."

They look at the big dipper, much like all of the Barians do a lot nowadays, really.

"Oi, Vector." Nasch turns to him. "Truce?"

_Ew._

"Are you insane?" Vector raises an eyebrow in disgust.

"I was kidding."

"Your humor is terrifying."

"Thanks."

**Author's Note:**

> Flowers, in order, with the particular meanings I went for (lol wikipedia):
> 
> orange lilies - hatred  
> gardenias & kamchatka lilies - secret love & love/curse  
> red roses - love/in love  
> lotus - far from the one he loves  
> erica/heather - solitude


End file.
